BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL

Drugs And A Confused American Conscience

THE UNTOUCHABLES is one clever film. For those unfamiliar with it, the movie
revolves around the efforts of federal agent Eliot Ness to bring down the
legendary bootlegger and gangster Al Capone, whose crime syndicate ran the
city of Chicago during the 1920s. The film is memorable for many reasons,
but what I think makes the movie so particularly clever is the way in which
the director, Brian DePalma, frames the film in relation to Prohibition.

Prohibition, in its own day, was a lethargic cause at best, and it appears
awfully misguided to us in retrospect. Accordingly, from the opening moments
of the film, The Untouchables never makes any attempt to justify
Prohibition. On the contrary, it makes clear time and again that the good
guys are after the bad guys only because they are a pack of lawless
cutthroats- - -and not because Prohibition is somehow "right." The
conclusion of the movie underscores this when, after it has become clear
that Al Capone will finally go to jail, a reporter asks Ness what he will do
if Prohibition is overturned. Ness turns to him and, smiling wryly, says, "I
think I'll have a drink."

Ness' attitude seems pretty striking to me. Given our own contemporary views
on drugs, try to imagine some movie in which an officer for the DEA, when
asked what he plans to do when cocaine is legalized, smugly replies, "Snort
up." It's absurd, for unlike the characters in The Untouchables, we
Americans have been programmed to believe that there is something
intrinsically wrong with our own illegal drugs, something that is so
indescribably awful about them that it's necessary for us to keep them out
of anyone's hands.

In a certain sense, of course, given our nation's commitment to civil
liberties, it seems almost necessary for us to view illegal drugs as such.
Lincoln himself said that attempts to ban alcohol struck "a blow at the very
principles upon which our government was founded" for they attempted to
"control a man's appetite by legislation." In turn, so that we might have a
clear conscience about banning certain substances and, thereby, restricting
people's freedom, we need a clear line drawn between what makes something
legal or illegal. The government has struggled to make such a distinction
through its tireless efforts to demonize those substances it has banned.
Illegal drugs aren't portrayed as things that are simply "bad" for you, like
red meat, caffeine, or tanning booths; they are profane and evil, something
so corrupt that their use conjures images of crime, failure, depravity, and
deceit.

In so doing, the government has not only deterred would-be drug users, it
has created an unmistakable aura about drug use, one that makes drugs seem
so inherently immoral that we are made to feel "okay" about banning them. As
Ronald Reagan would declare at the height of the "Just Say No" campaign,
"Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is." And America, for the
most part, has come to agree with him.

However, sweeping statements like Reagan's tend to engender confusion in
their drive for clarity, and there is no surer sign of this than our own
popular ambivalence over tobacco. We recognize the terrible physiological
effects of tobacco use, but unlike other similar substances, we don't feel
that we have the right to ban it. Nevertheless, we still don't want the
cancer-ridden blood of millions of Americans on our hands, and so we have
attempted to do everything outside of banning tobacco to get rid of it. We
as yet allow ourselves the decision to use tobacco, but we are constantly
being told-and are telling ourselves-what a terrible choice that is.

Strangely enough, given our nation's history, alcohol comes through this
whole mess today relatively unscathed. Though its excessive use tends, in
the case of drunk driving, to kill the people around the user far more so
than other drugs, alcohol is perceived as relatively innocuous and somehow
different from its corrupt counterparts.

In the end, it is all very confusing. And if you try to trace the popular
logic on these issues, you'll wind up with nothing but a headache. It is
true that the right answers to these questions do not stand out from the
wrong in the way the good guys do from the bad in movies like The
Untouchables. And so, when the government tries to frame the answers in
terms of good and evil, it's no wonder that we get so disoriented. The road
to a coherent and mature view on drugs is difficult, and we have lost our
way.

Index for the Harvard Political Review's series:

"Smoke and Mirrors - America's Drug War"

The Thirty Years' War - (Part 1 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a03.html

Editorial: From The Editor - (Part 2 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a02.html

The Experts Speak Out - (Part 3 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a05.html

Keep It Real - (Part 4 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a04.html

The Colombian Conundrum - (Part 5 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a06.html

Demystifying the Dutch - (Part 6 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a03.html

Paralyzed by Politics - (Part 7 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a01.html

An Unfortunate Hypocrisy - (Part 8 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a02.html

Throwing Away the Key - (Part 9 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a04.html

Beyond Good and Evil - (Part 10 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a05.html